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Do I Light Up?
By Polly | February 21, 2006
I was watching Oprah yesterday and it was a show on viewers’ favorite show picks for the past twenty years. One segment was about a “biker” Dad who saw a portion of Oprah’s 20th Anniversary DVD Collection and how that segment changed his relationship with his children. The clip that inspired him was a conversation between Toni Morrison and Oprah in which Toni asks parents - “When a kid walks in the roomâ€â€your child, or anybody else’s childâ€â€does your face light up?” So of course this got me to thinking? Do I light up?
Not a day goes by that I don’t tell each of my children (I have 4) how much I love them. I grew up not being told much that I was loved. Don’t get me wrong, I always knew I was loved, my parents just weren’t very verbal about it. It was considered spoiling to tell a child too much that you loved them. So I made a promise to myself that I would make it a part of life to let my kids know how much they meant to me. But is telling them you love them enough? Did I actually “light up” when they entered the room?
Well after a little bit of honest reflecting, I realized that I didn’t always “light up” — something my 7 year old daughter has been trying to tell me lately. My 7 year old is very sensitive to my moods. As she says “I like it when you’re happy” and when I’m not she’s not. As like every other parent, sometimes the pressures from everyday life of working, taking care of kids and family, cleaning the house, and paying the bills can take their toll on me emotionally. I often don’t sleep if feeling overwhelmed and stressed and believe me, I need my sleep. And the culmination of all these things sometimes causes me not to be in the mood to “light up”.
So in an effort to be a little more “happy” and “light up” more, and out of the incredible love and respect I have for my daughters, I think I’ll try to lighten up a bit and not stress when the bathrooms don’t get cleaned. Afterall, I don’t think it’s going to be the clean bathrooms that my daughters remember.
Do you “light up”? Remember, your kids will thank you for those little things later.
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Topics: Family Life Tips |